where one wood ends

on a walk with my wife last fall, we stumbled upon a couple of trees that had fallen together to form a perfect arch,which led me to think "this is just what a magical portal would look like: invisible to the casual passerby, waiting only for a magical being to activate it." to my great pleasure, this piece has gotten an editor's pick at Epilogue, inclusion in Epilogue's New Masters of Fantasy 2004 collection, and won the best digital painting award therein, owing to the selection of it by the very kind folks at GFX.